The 2024 rollercoaster: How Modi's BJP got its mojo back

The inauguration of the grand Ram Temple in Ayodhya, drawing to a close a centuries-old struggle for Hindus, was seen as a big win of the BJP. Around the time of the consecration ceremony on January 22, 2024, there was an overwhelming sentiment in favour of the Bharatiya Janata Party and its leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The event was expected to allow the BJP to cruise to a comfortable victory in the Lok Sabha elections which were less than a hundred days away. The entire nation was gripped in Hindu nationalistic fervor with songs adoring Lord Ram and the Ayodhya temple virtually filled the streets in large parts of India.

Lok Sabha elections: The wake-up call

However, voters had other plans, as became apparent as the election results began to trickle in on June 4 -- the Prime Minister was trailing from Varanasi at one point. That one development encapsulated the sentiment that most poll forecasters had failed to gauge.

As the day passed, if became evident that the voter had polled in favour of continuity but not without giving the BJP a lesson in humility. The party, which had been in a majority in the Lok Sabha on its own for two consecutive terms, was forced to depend on allies to form a government.

As per the final tally, the BJP bagged 240 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha, down from 303 it won in the 2019 elections. The elections saw the Congress make significant gains as its tally almost doubled from 52 to 99 seats in the Lower House. Overall, the INDIA bloc finished at 234 while the NDA went on to form a government with a reduced mandate of 293 seats.

The Haryana boost

The BJP's reduced tally and its dependence on allies like the TDP and JD(U) to stay in power allowed the Opposition to virtually turn its defeat into a victory narrative. The BJP appeared visibly subdued and a pale shadow of its combative past.

So, when the Haryana elections approached in October, political pundits predicted a Congress win as a writing on the wall. The sentiment, they believed was against the ruling BJP dispensation in the state, it had lost a key ally in Dushyant Chautala's JJP, the Jat anger against the party was palpable and a decade-long anti-incumbency all appeared to be leading up to a Congress comeback.

But it wasn't meant to be. Close on the heels of its Lok Sabha setback, the BJP engaged with the RSS and other Sangh Parivar functionaries on multiple levels. Its assessment had shown that the lack of involvement of these social organizations had led to disenchantment among voters as its message of development, welfare initiatives, social justice and Hindu pride failed to reach the last mile.

The outreach worked and the results showed a counter consolidation of OBC, forward caste and Dalit votes that surmounted the challenge posed by the resentment among Jats, a factor the Congress perhaps laid too much reliance on. As the final tally showed, the BJP, with 48 of 90 seats, registered its best performance ever in the state and formed a government for a record third consecutive term. The Congress, on the other hand, was limited to 37 seats.

The Maharashtra comeback

The BJP's comeback in Haryana had come as just the shot in the arm that the party needed after the setback in Lok Sabha. However, a bigger battle awaited in Maharashtra where the political landscape was far more different and challenging as compared to Haryana, a smaller state which has traditionally witnessed bipolar battles.

Contrary to Haryana, Maharashtra had witnessed much disruption in its political landscape since the 2019 Assembly elections. Maharashtra was also one of the two states where the BJP had suffered its biggest losses in the Lok Sabha elections. Yet, there was a deep sense of uncertainty when it came to gauging whether the Maharashtra voter would vote the same way it did in the Lok Sabha elections.

On its part, the BJP sprang into action and deployed a multi-pronged approach. With social organisations pressing their cadre into service for the ground work, the Mahayuti went ahead and announced the Ladki Bahin Yojana for women in the state and followed it up with a meticulous social engineering that saw a near-complete consolidation of forward, OBCs and Dalit votes in its favour.

This, while managing to create a divide within the Maratha vote bank that had been agitating against the government on the quota issue, ensured that the Mahayuti registers the biggest victory for any pre-poll alliance in the state in over five decades. Devendra Fadnavis of the BJP was appointed as the Chief Minister while Shiv Sena's Eknath Shinde and NCP's Ajit Pawar were appointed Deputy CMs.

The 2025 challenge for BJP

While the 2024 ended on a good note for the BJP, the year 2025 will bring three distinct challenges for the party. There are two major elections scheduled to be held in 2025 in Delhi and Bihar and the stakes are equally high for the BJP in both states. While power has remained elusive to the BJP in Delhi, the BJP would be desperate for a turnaround in the polls scheduled for February in the national capital.

In Bihar, where the JD(U)-BJP combine is in power under the leadership of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, there is a formidable challenge in the form of the RJD which emerged as the single largest party in the previous elections. It is also one of the few states where the BJP has failed to cultivate its own leadership and has depended on Nitish to remain in power.

Another interesting battle likely to unfold next year will be in the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation elections where the rival factions of the Shiv Sena will face off in yet another bid for supremacy. In the 2017 BMC polls, Shiv Sena emerged as the largest party with 84 seats followed by the BJP (82), Congress (31), NCP (9), MNS (7) and Others (14). However, defections have reshaped the political landscape. The term of the BMC office-bearers ended in 2022.